President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree Monday streamlining the federal government but stopped short of naming ministers to key positions in the new Cabinet.
The decree also strengthened Yeltsin's executive powers, giving him direct control over such vital ministries as foreign, defense and interior as well as the federal broadcasting service, intelligence and counterintelligence.The number of ministries will be cut from 30 to 23, and several federal committees will be merged or eliminated, bringing the total number of federal agencies down to 67 from 120.
The move is designed to save money and to improve interaction of the executive and legislative branches, the decree said.
The decree also directs Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to cut the number of his deputies from nine to four and to name candidates for those positions within one week.
Several of the current ministers were elected to Russia's new parliament, which convenes for its first session Tuesday. It will probably be clear within several days which ministers get important positions in parliament, giving Yeltsin and Chernomyrdin time to decide how to best fill the top Cabinet posts.
Meanwhile, ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky warned Monday that his party will not accept a strong president and a weak legislature.
Speaking to his party's 64 parliament members at a Moscow conference center, Zhirinovsky also attacked the Baltic states, calling them "so far independent - to our sorrow."
His remarks otherwise were unusually restrained and lacked their customary provocative edge.
Zhirinovsky's populist call for Russia to rebuild its empire helped his Liberal Democratic Party win more than 23 percent of the vote in last month's elections.
The 64-member Liberal Democratic Party faction will be the second largest in the new parliament's 450-member lower house, the Duma. Only Russia's Choice, which supports President Boris Yeltsin, has more seats with 94.
On Sunday Russian Communists vented their wrath against the Yeltsin administration just a stone's throw from the former Russian parliament building, still under repair from the October violence.
Diehard Communists criticized the upcoming Yeltsin-Clinton summit in the first of a series of anti-government demonstrations planned by opposition groups for the days leading up to President Clinton's visit to Moscow later in the week for talks with Yeltsin.
Sunday's rally was designed as a remembrance of the hard-liners whose revolt was crushed by Yel-tsin's tanks and troops. "Yeltsin - murderer," said picket signs.